I'm really bothered personally by some of the assumptions I've seen made in this thread. I should preface this by saying that A: I'm a white cis male, so I lack any personal experience of what other people have experienced and B: I'm personally emotionally close to this issue because my SO is feminine according to traditional gender appearance norms but was AMAB, identifies as male, and is happiest looking traditionally feminine and having male genitalia.
I'm not posting to defend CDProjekt or their use of this image in the game (who I'm not a super big fan of) and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm posting because someone of the assumptions made and attitudes displayed personally bother me and could affect my SO who is very dear to me. I've tried to make the tone of this post calm and civil, but it WAS written from an emotionally charged place and I feel that it is important to get not just my thoughts but my feelings across on some of this. Also, I wrote this before the thread was locked, so this is written from the context of the things that were said in the first 200 or so posts.
I'm bothered by the assumption that simply because someone looks feminine according to traditional gender norms and has a penis they must be transgender. There are a number of other reasons I can think of for someone to appear traditionally feminine and have a penis, regardless of how they identify. Other gender identities, subcultures, aesthetics. I'm not going to enumerate them; I would probably miss some and I really shouldn't need to for my point to get across. This particular assumption is also complicated by the fact that this is a cyberpunk game based on a cyberpunk game based on another cyberpunk game based on cyberpunk fiction from the 80s. Cyberpunk isn't synonymous with transhumanism, but it definitely overlaps and transhuman themes have been leaking into cyberpunk ever since it got out of the 80s. One of these is the blurring of gender, sex, or at least of traditional gender norms. Another is an increasing normalization of sex in all its forms.
I'm particularly bothered by this assumption because actions and words coming from beliefs built on this assumption caused my SO to struggle with their identity for years. Simply being more accepting of those who don't fit the accepted boxes could have made their life a lot better, sooner.
I'm bothered by the assumption that depicting a person who IS trans with a penis in a sexual manner must be fetishism of trans people and the claim that we should always assume that it is. There are many people who are trans but have no desire or intention to undergo bottom surgery. Rare though they seem, there are people who might undergo bottom surgery in the future but are at least comfortable with the genitalia they have. Is it really fetishism to allow them the same treatment in media that cis men and women get? Sex has been used in advertising for a long time, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly. Sexual advertisements are particularly non-surprising in a cyberpunk work where corporations and their ad material rule the world. The genitalia of the subject of the in-universe ad are definitely the focus, but is this any different than how a sexually charged ad might focus on someone else's genitalia or secondary sexual characteristics? Are non-op, pre-op trans people or others not allowed to participate in advertisements or other works in the same way as someone else because someone might fetishize them?
I am personally bothered by this because to decry a fictional representation of something is not far away from trying to deny real representations, and that affects my SO and others like them. More importantly in the general and the short term, non-op trans people have gotten a lot of hate, even from other trans people. I've seen it in certain trans-focused online communities and my SO experienced it in real life. It has improved recently but the bigotry and mistreatment is not gone. Treating any sexualized depiction of a traditionally feminine person with a penis as a fetishized depiction of a trans person is unquestionably marginalizing non-op trans people and the other groups I mentioned earlier even if the marginalization is unintended. Decrying that depiction could result in disenfranchising those people. To me it seems awfully similar to the attitude that only 'passing' traditionally attractive trans people should be public representations of the trans community, a position that is harmful and in my opinion unneccesarily and sometimes intentionally cruel to those who might not pass or be traditionally attractive.
That all said, I wouldn't really be surprised if it turns out that many people who work at CD Projekt have less than respectful ideas of and on trans people and this image was made by them. But CD Projekt's intentions don't change the reactions some people have already had and how their attitudes can affect people, including one close to me.
